Joy McDonald

Vic Calthorpe, Mary Martin and I went sketching to Southbank a couple of weeks ago. This is the sketch I did of city buildings across the river. I should really find out the names of the buildings!!!! I liked the patterns of the windows in the old lowrise building in front. And of course, there's a motorway in front but I chose to omit it.

This is the painting I have entered into the Chapman & Bailey Belle Arte award. I have no idea where it came from (or where it is going). Giotto - because something about the colours reminds me of Giotto. What is a doppelganger? doppelganger - a ghostly double of a living person that haunts its living counterpart legendary creature - a monster that is unverifiable but popularly accepted as possibly factual. So there you have it.

Project 5 This is the diptych - mechanical object. The painting is based on my beautiful o ld hand-drill. I was thinking of the houses I've renovated and how I had to learn to use tools as I went along because I went to a ' home science' school for girls where I learned to 'set' a breakfast tray and make cinnamon toast! Nothing as useful as woodwork - that was a male domain. I was also looking at Picabia's mechanical drawings and I have appropriated the subtitle of one of his works - machine turn quickly - for the title of my painting - Homme et Femme . The text in the paintings refer to my high school and to Kurt Schwitters notion that machines are abstractions of the human spirit. Project 6 This series of 6 small paintings (40cmx40cm) are called Palimpsest and they refer to what David Malouf describes as 'sprawlingly unlovely' Brisbane. The architectural elements in the paintings are my sketches screen-printed onto the canvas. Brisbane peopl

These are watercolour and collage studies for a series of small paintings. The paintings will incorporate my sketches of Brisbane buildings, etc. The conceptual basis is to achieve a 'sense of place' and will investigate Brisbane's identity as a changing urban environment.

How cute are these naughty kookas?

The diptych so far. Maybe the drive wheels canvas should be rotated? Maybe it's finished? Not sure - not much time left - 2 days maybe.

Today's studies for abstract mechanical object. Mixed media drawings - soft drill + small colour studies.

Some early studies for large abstract diptych.